


The Type of Fun that Makes Me Blue

by perfectlystill



Series: Love, I'll Let You Go [1]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Episode: s03e08-09 Girl Meets Ski Lodge, Underage Drinking, background Riley/Lucas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 16:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7648309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Maya is confused. </i>
</p><p> <i>Well, she's currently a lot of things. Confused is not the easiest of those to tackle -- tired, maybe, or hungry, because she's been tired for the last year and a half (or maybe she's been tired her entire life) and sleep doesn't seem to mitigate that -- but it's a lot easier to tackle than the things she is that she can't even pull out words for.</i></p><p>Maya after Ski Lodge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Type of Fun that Makes Me Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for underage drinking, and Maya does kiss a college boy (not Josh).
> 
> Title and epigraph both from "Real" by Years & Years.

if i had been enough for you,  
would i be better? would i be good?  
  
love, i'll let you go  
oh, it's enough to be better,  
if i could.  
_REAL_ , YEARS & YEARS

 

 

 

Maya is confused. 

Well, she's currently a lot of things. Confused is not the easiest of those to tackle -- tired, maybe, or hungry, because she's been tired for the last year and a half (or maybe she's been tired her entire life) and sleep doesn't seem to mitigate that -- but it's a lot easier to tackle than the things she is that she can't even pull out words for. Maybe if she tried to explain it to Farkle, Riley or Zay, she could figure it out. But she can't. She doesn't trust herself to explain it right, and she doesn't trust that she actually is these things she's feeling. 

Here's the truth of the matter: Maya thought she liked Lucas. 

She thought the way his mouth would tick up at the corner when she said something he thought was funny that he didn't want to find funny was nice. His hand on her, resting against the sleeve of her shirt or the rap of his knuckle against the back of her thigh, made her heart constrict and her cheeks feel warm. When she thought about him laughing and smiling against her lips, she'd curl her toes into her shoes and her hands into fists. She wanted that -- _thought_ she wanted that. She thought he smelled nice when she would tug on his shirt and pull him close to say something vaguely mean that she didn't actually, well, _mean_. At least not in a mean way. 

Maybe what Maya really needs is to pay attention in English class to expand her vocabulary. 

Maybe she wouldn't be so confused if she had the words for what had happened. 

 

 

Riley told Maya that Maya had become her. 

Maya was skeptical, but then she'd listened. It's hard to compete with an impassioned Riley, a Riley who believes in what she's saying with her entire body, vibrating like she's placed the last piece of the puzzle correctly, solved the hardest algebra equation on the test, discovered a five step plan to bring about world peace. Maya is good at believing in Riley and believing Riley, and eventually she decided it was easier and better to do so than to argue. 

Josh told her she'd become Riley to protect her. A new facet. New proof.

Maya accepted, worn past the point of argument. 

She just wanted it to be over. 

She had liked the weight of the triangle being lifted, so she had ignored the twist in her gut when she'd told Lucas to go to Riley, because she just wanted him to be happy. She wanted Riley to be happy, too. They deserved it. They were two of her best friends, and she'd positioned herself in their path for long enough. 

And really, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, with Josh there, his hand warm in hers. The possibility of a fantasy becoming reality looming on the horizon where she could see it, instead of squinting in the dark for something that didn't exist. But now he's at college, and she's still in high school, and Lucas and Riley hold hands when they're all walking to Topanga's, and Maya doesn't understand why she's so aware of her own empty palm. 

 

 

The results have been as good as intended. Riley's happier now, even brighter than before. Maya never knew what glowing looked, even with the Matthews, and with her mom and Shawn. Riley though, Riley glows. When she calls Maya up to tell her about her latest date with Lucas, because there's _too much_ for a text, Maya can feel the sunshine through her phone. She tries to listen the first time it happens:

"We went to the _cutest_ little pizza place! You get to make your own, and then they bake it in one of those fancy fireplaces."

"What did you put on yours?" Maya asks. She's sitting in her room on Saturday night. She did all her homework, and she thinks about sneaking out to a party the senior who lives on the first floor told her about with a wink on the wrong side of skeezy. She thinks about what she should and shouldn't do constantly now. She thinks about if she would do it or if Riley would do it. She tries to make sure the scale is more Maya than Riley, but so much of the Maya stuff would disappoint Riley, and so much of the Maya stuff she doesn't want to do -- not that she wanted to do her homework, either, but there had been nothing else to distract her with Zay back in Texas this weekend and all her other friends out on dates.

"Cheese," Riley laughs. "But three different kinds! One came from a goat."

"You're wild." Maya picks up her pencil and starts doodling a pizza slice onto the corner of her science worksheet. 

"Lucas wanted to put roasted garlic on his, and I told him that I wouldn't kiss him goodnight if he did," Riley continues. 

Maya presses her pencil so hard into her paper she punctures the cheese drip she was drawing. 

"And he settled for peppers. Like, a rainbow of peppers. It was so _cute_." Riley pauses, and Maya doesn't say anything. "Maya?" Riley asks eventually.

"Rainbow of peppers. I'm keeping up."

"Are you okay?" Riley asks it the same way she would if Maya tripped over a crack in the pavement and didn't fall: friendly and concerned, but not worried. 

Maya would like to keep it that way: "Great! Sorry, I was just trying to get chips from the top cabinet."

Riley dives back in, and Maya tries to listen. She tries so hard, but when Riley starts talking about Lucas opening the door for her and pulling out her chair and being a "perfect prince," Maya closes her eyes and breathes steadily and has to tell Riley she's premenstrual and getting cramps. Trying to make her voice sound strained and tired doesn't require much effort.

She hangs up and texts Josh: _How was your philosophy test?"_

He doesn't respond within the hour, so Maya smears eyeliner on her lids and goes to the party skeezy senior told her about. She gets tipsy off whatever is in the punch that tastes like gasoline smells. 

"I thought I liked him," she confesses to the girl in front of her, who also has the misfortune of waiting for the bathroom. They've been standing here for what feels like an hour, so Maya knows it's probably been about ten minutes. "I really did."

She may be tipsy and over-sharing, but she can tell the girl's eyes are half-pity and half-irritation. "You probably did."

"I didn't," Maya objects. "I just _thought_ I did."

The couple previously occupying the bathroom stumbles out then, the girl laughing while the boy mumbles a very satisfied "sorry," at the line of people in the hallway. The girl she was talking to says: "Good for you" before slamming the door in Maya's face.

 

 

"Wanna bet?" Zay asks, sliding next to her on the sofa and holding out a muffin.

"Maybe." Maya plucks it from his hand. It's chocolate macadamia nut, and Maya picks at a piece of white chocolate jutting from the top. "Depends on if I'm gonna win."

Zay chuckles, elbowing her in the side. "You know I only make bets I'm gonna win, Hart."

"Stop stalling, Babineaux." It's not like him to avoid a topic with her, and when he eyes her warily and sighs, anxiety starts to creep up her throat. "Your peace offering is gonna go stale before you spit it out."

"I was trying to find a way to make it sound fun instead of depressing. But, you're okay, right?"

Maya narrows her eyes. "Besides you sitting here bugging me? Fine."

"You wanna bet how long you can keep up this charade before Riley notices?" he asks. "Because I gotta keep it real, Maya, and your poker face was a lot better a year ago."

Maya blinks, and Zay's looking at her with cloying softness and understanding. "I don't know what you're talking about." He scoffs. Maya takes a bite of her muffin and chews slowly. She knows if she's quiet long enough Zay will start filling the silence with whatever prattle comes to mind. It's something he has in common with Riley, and it's something she likes about both of them. 

"Look, Maya," Zaya breaks. Maya sits up a little straighter. "You're not fine. No offense, but you look like shit."

"Offense," she swallows around another round of chocolate. 

"You're not doing illegal activities without me, are you?" There's a mischievous glint in his eyes that feels true, even if Maya knows he's doing that 'trying to make this less depressing' thing. "Because I'm a great lookout."

"You'd abandon me faster than you could call out the warning."

"Yes, Ma'am." He smiles proudly. 

Maya licks at the corner of her mouth and her eyes wander around the bakery. A couple of kids from her math class are in a booth in the back studying, and there's an old, wrinkly couple talking over coffee, the man's hand resting casually over the woman's on the table. Maya imagines they've been together for fifty years, and it hurts as much as it heals. "I'm fine. I'm just ... trying to figure out who I am again. Going back to being me is a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"Recalibrating," he supplies. 

"Yeah." 

"Cool. I get it. Kind of." He reaches over and pinches part of her muffin between two fingers, tearing it away from the rest and popping it into his mouth. "But if, you know, it's something else, that's okay, too."

Maya looks down. The cost of this muffin is starting to seem like more than it's worth. "Sure."

 

 

She runs into Lucas at the bodega by her apartment. Which is weird because it's decidedly _not_ by anywhere he should be.

"Hey." She forces a smile. "Where's Riley?"

Lucas shrugs like he doesn't know, but says: "She went to the movies with her family."

"Cool. I'm just picking up some milk." Maya points behind her to the freezers and turns on her heel. She expects him to get whatever it is he came for and leave her alone, but after grabbing the 2% she turns around to find him standing a few feet away, hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. 

"You free?" he asks.

"This is America, Lucas." She hooks the handle of the jug between her thumb and forefinger and lets it hang by her thigh. It's cold and she can feel the condescension wetting the edge of her skirt and leaking against her knee. 

"To hang out, Maya." He sounds mildly exasperated, but his mouth is doing that thing like he's fighting a smile. 

"Oh." She swallows. "No, I can't."

Lucas' eyebrows furrow, and he watches her press her mouth together. He opens and closes his own once before responding: "Yeah, you're right. I um, I forgot my mom wants me home for dinner." A lie, Maya can tell. His face gets splotchy, and instead of the ghost of a smile on his mouth there's the ghost of guilt. She hopes it's not for her. 

"See you Monday," she offers. 

"Yeah, um, see you Monday." He scratches at his head, and Maya watches him leave with his shoulders slumped forward, like he's trying to disappear. 

She feels like she's going to cry for no reason at all. 

 

 

It takes three post-date phone calls, two stomachaches from eating an entire pint of ice cream by herself, and one hangover before Maya learns she doesn't really have to listen to what Riley's singing about. She just has to fill the gaps where Riley pauses to catch her breath with hums and "So cute!" and "So fun!" and "That's great, Riles." 

 

 

"You know what I think we should do?" Riley asks, splayed out in her bed with arms stretched toward the ceiling. 

"I have a feeling you're gonna tell me either way," Maya says. She's pulling her boot onto her foot while trying to smooth out her jeans enough so her ankle doesn't look bulky and lumpy once she zips up the fake leather. 

"You want to know though, don't you?" 

Maya can hear the smile in Riley's voice, and she shakes her head. She's so fond of the dork. "Yeah, Riles, I want to know." 

"I knew it!" Riley sits up, her grin bright and goofy. Maya laughs. "I think we should all plan a summer trip. Just the six of us." A beat, and then: "I mean, my mom would come, of course."

"Of course," Maya mocks, rolling her eyes.

"And we could like, spend a weekend at the beach. Like adults."

"With parental supervision," Maya clarifies.

Riley tilts her head, still smiling. Maya thinks that smile is an unstoppable force.

"Parental supervision so we can _prove_ how adult we are," Riley says. "We can go swimming in the ocean, and have a sandcastle building contest that Farkle and Smackle will win, and sleep in sleeping bags with our heads all together."

"I don't know." Maya pushes herself up and brushes off her jeans. "I'm not really into sand. It gets everywhere and stays there for a week."

Riley's smile falters a little. "My mom isn't my dad. She won't be overbearing. And we deserve it for surviving freshman year, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Maya relents. She's not the immovable object. Not when it comes to Riley. "I'll think about it."

"And if you're worried about Farkle and Smackle and Lucas and I sneaking off for romantic walks on the beach when the sun sets, don't. Zay will be there. It won't be a fifth wheel situation. It's a six of us situation."

Maya brushes a piece of hair away from her face. "Wasn't worried about it."

"I know." Riley bounces off her bed until she's standing in front of Maya, blocking her path out the bedroom door and grabbing her hand. "Come on. I'm not going if you're not going."

"No one's going if you're not going," Maya says. 

Riley shrugs, eyes earnest and excited. "It'll be fun. I promise." 

Maya doesn't think so, but she agrees to go anyway.

 

 

Maya spends a lot of time with Riley and the Matthews still, but it feels like she spends a lot of time with Riley and the Matthews again. 

Riley makes her practice the cheer routines with her in the living room, pushing the sofa, chairs and table as far into the corners as possible, because even then Riley manages to hit something. Her alternate status doesn't derail her, and when Maya gets better at a move than Riley is, she makes Maya teach her even though Maya doesn't know what it's actually supposed to look like. 

They sing along loudly to the radio through the speakers on the television, and Maya watches Riley spin and spin until she gets dizzy and collapses to the ground laughing, face flushed from exertion and joy. Riley coaches her through her English essay, and Mr. Matthews gives her an A on her history paper that she didn't ask for any help on, and this time Riley just hugs her until she feels like all her insides are going to smoosh together, saying: "I'm so proud of you, Maya. I knew you could do it." 

Maya feels like she has her best friend back.

It's the thing she wanted the most, and she wishes it felt like it was the only thing she wanted at all.

 

 

Maya's got a better grip on who she is now, and she knows she hates this.

This: a sleepover with Smackle and Riley.

This: the conversation they're currently having about boys. 

"Farkle's wonderful," Smackle says, and Maya may hate talking about this, but she agrees that Farkle is pretty great, so she nods and grabs a piece of popcorn from the bowl between the three of them, rubbing it against the side in an attempt to coat it with more butter. 

Riley kicks her feet in the air behind her, lying on her stomach with her chin resting in her palms. She broke out a set of Disney princess sleeping bags for each of them, and is settled comfortably over Cinderella's face. "He really is. You're so lucky to have him."

"We are both very lucky." Smackle pushes at her glasses.

"Do you feel that ... thing? You know, like from the movie. With the leg popping?" Riley asks. She forced them to watch _The Princess Diaries_ earlier, and Maya had really enjoyed Smackle's take down of the makeover scene, even though she thought the princess looked better with the shiny, straight hair. Sue her. 

Smackle looks down and her mouth turns up in the smallest and most genuine smile Maya's ever seen on her face. "Yeah, I think I do. It's hard to say, objectively. There's never been actual foot popping."

Maya crunches through a popcorn kernel. "I think it's pretty obvious if you feel the foot popping thing, though." 

"Like you and Josh?" Riley asks. She smiles sadly. "I bet you miss him a lot."

It's Maya's turn to look down, and as she looks at the faded image of Megra on her own sleeping bag, she frowns and shrugs. "I don't know."

"It's girl chat," Riley reminds her. "This is a sacred circle of friendship and secrets. You can be totally open and honest with us. Right, Smackle?"

"Yes," Smackle agrees.

The problem is Maya doesn't miss him. She doesn't really think about him when he's not around, if she's being totally open and honest. She feels a bit giddy when he is around, and the caffeine-like rush she used to get has faded in a way she wants to think just means maturity, but fears means something less cool. She likes him, and she likes the idea of being related to Riley even more than that. But the cold hard truth is Maya thinks she's experienced a form of foot popping, and she thinks saying that would cause a lot of problems because of the when and the whom. 

"No, not like me and Josh," she mumbles. 

"It's okay," Riley says, and Maya feels her rubbing circles into her back. "Don't be embarrassed. Lucas and I are in love, and I don't think I've experienced foot popping either."

 

 

Maya attends a college party. 

She's tired of being alone on Saturday nights, and she imagines running into Josh. It's easier for her to swallow everything that's happened when he's around. It feels less real when he's around. Maya has never thought love was supposed to feel less than real, but she's been wrong about a lot of things in her life, so she might as well add that to the list of disappointments. 

There's a haze of smoke over the fraternity the party is at, accompanied by the smell of marijuana and the humidity of too many bodies in a place without proper air-conditioning as spring starts to flirt with summer. Maya shimmies her way through the throng of people until she finds the keg and fills a solo cup. She doesn't like the taste of alcohol, but she likes it more than she likes being alone at these things. She keeps doing stuff she thinks she's supposed to like as Maya, and she keeps wondering why she hates it. 

A guy with dark hair smiles at her, and she smiles back before taking a sip of beer. She lets him make his way over to her, and when he asks if she wants to dance, she lifts one shoulder nonchalantly, chokes back the rest of the beer in her cup and says: "lead the way." 

His hands find their way to her hips easily, and his fingers find her skin even easier. She closes her eyes and sways to the thumping of the music. Maya knows there are words to this song, but she can't make them out over how high the bass is turned up. She hums along, tilts her head forward and rests it against the guy's shoulder. When she starts to feel sweaty, she pulls away, moving her hands from their perch around his neck to his shoulders. 

He leans down and kisses her and she lets him. She kisses him back. 

It's her first kiss. It feels good, and when she goes to get another beer, his hand against the small of her back is solid and steadying and real. 

In the morning it will feel dirty, and she won't remember his name, if she ever learned it at all.

She'll find a text she sent Zay: _How long does it tak to recalulate a person???_

And his replies: _Depends on the person_

_But I don't think this long_

_Are you okay?_

She knows she should have an answer to that last one by now. 

She's scared that she doesn't.

(She's scared that she does.)

 

 

Mrs. Matthews gives a big speech about how she knows they're growing up and she respects their burgeoning independence, but she needs them to check in with her if they wander for longer than an hour, tell her where they're going, and be back in the rented cabin by 10 P.M. unless otherwise authorized. 

"Thanks Mr. Matthews lite." Maya smiles and punches her shoulder softly, dropping her bag onto the floor. 

Mrs. Matthews rolls her eyes, but she fondly adds: "Independence is earned by responsibility." 

They sit on the beach the first night, and Smackle and Farkle point out the constellations they can see, telling the stories behind them. Zay and Maya get up halfway through to act them out. Maya pretends to be a wolf, and Zay pretends to be a bear that mauls her. She argues that a wolf could take a bear and tackles him to the ground with an awful and exaggerated howl.

"That's not ... you're mixing the stories," Farkle protests.

Maya calls to Riley for reinforcements, and then Riley is chasing Zay down the beach, hair blowing behind her in the breeze. 

Riley makes everyone help drag the mattresses out of the bedrooms and into the living room. "A real boy-girl sleepover," Maya gasps dramatically, fighting with her own bed. She didn't know feathers could be this heavy. 

"Don't be gross," Riley calls from where she's tucking her sheets around her already-in-place mattress, because she doesn't trust the ones provided and because Lucas helped her carry it. 

"Need a hand?" Lucas asks, easily lifting the other side of Maya's bed. 

Maya huffs. "No." 

Lucas drops the end of the mattress unceremoniously, smirking when it causes Maya to stumble and lose her grip. "You sure about that?"

Maya lets the mattress fall against her legs and repositions her hands on her hips. "I'm earning this thing called independence."

"I don't think that's what Mrs. Matthews meant," Lucas starts. "Everyone else got help-"

"No." Maya cuts him off. It comes out harsher than intended. "Just, go help Riley tuck her bedspread in the right way, okay? I got it covered." A beat. "Covered. Ha! See, it's all good here." 

He frowns. "Stop being ridiculous. It's not that-" 

Maya yells: "Riley, tell your boyfriend that women can do stuff without men!"

 

 

Mrs. Matthews makes waffles for breakfast, and they're so much better than the frozen kind. Maya slathers hers in butter and syrup and just rolls her eyes when Lucas says she's going to give herself heart disease. 

"You have to let Maya be Maya," Riley offers with a pat on his arm, and Maya rolls her eyes again. 

They head to the beach straight after breakfast, but Riley just dips her big toe into the ocean before grimacing. "It's cold. We should wait. Besides, our food probably needs more time to digest."

Maya throws herself in anyway, and she stays under until the cold subsides and she feels like her lungs are going to collapse inside her chest. When she pops back up, Lucas and Smackle are both soaked, and Farkle's jaw is clenched as he walks toward them. "You have to submerge yourself," Smackle says. 

"I know," Farkle answers, still wading deeper into the ocean one step at a time, face set in determination.

Maya laughs when Lucas drags Zay in kicking and screaming, and she focuses on getting used to opening her eyes in the water while he coaxes Riley. It feels unnatural, but it doesn't burn or sting like the chlorinated pool she and Riley learned to swim in when the water would leak into her goggles. 

Smackle climbs on Farkle's shoulders, and Maya climbs on Zay's for a game of chicken, and Maya doesn't even mind so much that she loses (twice) because Smackle plays dirty (twice). 

"Respect," Zay says, offering his fist.

"Not in front of Farkle." Smackle blushes, but hits her knuckles against his while Farkle groans.

Maya stays in the water when everyone goes back to their umbrella and cooler for lunch, floating on her back and looking at the sun too long before closing her eyes. She doesn't fall asleep, but her mind settles so it feels like time isn't so rigid. She feels soft and hazy, and she feels good. She stretches her arms out and pushes herself a little deeper into the ocean. The light filtering in through her eyelashes changes. There's a tug on her ankle. "I'm not hungry."

"Riley wants you to help build the sandcastle," Lucas says. 

Maya doesn't open her eyes. "Okay. I'll be there in a minute." She can feel him hovering, and she just breathes in and out. "Go away, Lucas."

"They have a good start on it, so don't wait too long."

She makes her way back to the group, finding she's floated a few more feet to the left than she thought. The sandcastle has two moats, a huge pool in the courtyard, and Farkle and Smackle are conspiring on a way to make flying buttresses. Riley smiles as Maya approaches and holds out her hand. "Let's go find shells for decoration."

They walk quietly along the shore, the waves lapping at their feet, and Riley stops every few minutes to pick up a rock or seashell, running her fingers over the surface before setting it back down carefully or keeping it in her palm. "You're good, right?" Riley asks as she's examining an oblong gray rock with a white crack in the middle. 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Maya says. "You were right. This is fun. Blah, blah, blah. Thank you for making me come. Blah."

Riley shakes her head with an amused smirk on her face and links her arm through Maya's. "I know, Peaches, but I meant in general. You seem a lot happier."

Maya blinks and doesn't look at her. She picks up a rock and throws it, watching it skid across the water twice before falling, the ripple smaller than she wanted it to be. "Thanks for teaching me how to skip rocks," she says. 

She feels Riley tense next to her before picking up a rock of her own to throw into the ocean. 

 

 

Maya knows Riley isn't stupid. 

Maya knows that if she's lucky, and if she's really good at diverting Riley's attention, that she has maybe two more months of this. Two more months of Riley letting her slide and thinking things are fine, of thinking Maya isn't confused. Of thinking Maya got the same type of clarification at the lodge that she did. 

Maya is glad she's gotten this long. 

Maya wishes she had forever. 

 

 

Zay and Lucas build a fire that night, and when Riley goes inside to talk to her dad and Auggie, Lucas sits down next to Maya, handing her a skewered marshmallow. 

"Thanks," she says, flexing her toes before pushing on the beach chair to stand up.

"Maya, can I talk to you?" he asks, interrupting the movement.

She flops back down the inch she gained. "I don't think I want to talk to you."

He sighs, and she watches the flame lick itself higher and higher, watches the sparks that sizzle and fade. "We're not friends, are we?"

"Of course we're friends, Lucas."

"Maya," he starts, and he sounds as tired as she feels. "That's the thing, right there. You never call me anything but Lucas anymore. You don't talk to me-"

"I thought we were talking right now." She sticks her marshmallow above the flame and twirls it. 

"You know what I mean." He exhales, long and low. "I miss you."

Maya's eyes hurt. Her vision blurs, and she tells herself it's because the wind shifted and smoke from the fire's gotten in her eyes. "We're ... friends. We're ... Riley is my best friend, and you make her so happy, and so we're friends."

"We're friends because of Riley," he clarifies. 

"We're friends because of Riley." 

Maya turns to look at him, and he's looking back at her with such focus and softness that she feels that same twist she felt all those months ago when she gave him up again. And she knows now that this time it was worse than the first time, because she gave up a real possibility, and because she'd allowed herself to want it in a tangible way. Even if Maya knows it was always going to be Riley and Lucas, and even if she knows she did the right thing, she knows it hurts. 

She's hurt. 

"I can't make fun of you and call you Huckleberry and be ... whatever it was we were before. It wouldn't be fair to her." She inhales and curls her fingers around her knee. The skewer in her other hand drops from the fire, one side of the marshmallow brown and the other still white. "It wouldn't be fair to me. It's too hard."

Lucas' eyes sweep over her face, his mouth tilted down, and Maya feels like she can't breathe. She can hear Smackle and Zay laughing across the way, and Farkle is trying to talk over them. She closes her eyes and it takes everything she has in her not to cry. "I'm sorry," he whispers then, and she opens her eyes again. He looks sad, and it hurts, hurts, hurts. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen, Maya."

He gets up but leans toward her as he's doing it, his hand finding its way to her face, fingers dancing over the nape of her neck and thumb brushing over her jaw. Maya's breath hitches. She's suffocating. He presses his mouth to her forehead, and Maya feels the lump in her throat grow impossibly larger. Her eyes are wet. He whispers: "I don't know if this will make you feel better, but for the record, this is why I like you so much." 

 

 

She's not confused anymore. 

She's Maya, and she has always been Maya, and she had liked Lucas. She has always liked Lucas. 

And then she did what she always does: she put Riley first, and she broke her own heart. 

Hope is for suckers.

**Author's Note:**

> If any of this feels totally off-base in terms of where the characters and relationships between the characters are, it's probably because I haven't actually watched any of the episodes post Girl Meets New Years and have just spoiled myself for everything through the interwebs (deciding to catch up when the show gives me Maya/Lucas is clearly ... not going well. Oops).


End file.
